“Take it, please. I—I’m sorry you showed it to me.”
“Because—I shan’t like this—this cheap thing any more. It—isn’t fit to remember you by. It—isn’t like you, the same’s this one is.”
His face flushed. He bent toward her eagerly.
“Give me the little blue ring, Jennie; I’d like to keep it—just to remind me that there is a woman in the world who loved to do things for me—— That’s what you said, and I shan’t forget it in a hurry.”
She pulled the ring from her hand with a listless gesture.
“You c’n have it, if you want it,” she said.
She swallowed hard, her childish lips trembling piteously.
“Try the other one on and see if it fits,” said David. “I’ve been carrying it about in my pocket for a couple of months. She wouldn’t have it, and I swore I wouldn’t offer it to her again. Take it, and wear it—or sell it; I don’t care what you do with it.”
The girl trembled, her round blue eyes on his face.
“Honest and truly, do you mean it?” she whispered. “I’m almost afraid; it—it’s so—lovely!”
He was thinking confusedly of Barbara, of her coldness, her capriciousness, her bad temper, as he chose to term her rather pitiful attempts to curb his own lawlessness. It suddenly appeared to David that he had been abused, made light of, almost insulted, of late. What other construction could be put upon Barbara’s behavior that very afternoon? He still loved her, of course; but her treatment of him certainly merited this tardy reprisal.
“You ain’t had a scrap with her, have you?” Jennie asked timidly, “an’—broke off th’ engagement?”
“Well, not exactly,” he muttered, with a frown.
“Anyway, don’t—show her that ring o’ mine, please. I’m ’fraid—she’d laugh.”
“She won’t see it, ever. Don’t worry about that. And she won’t set eyes on that diamond again in a hurry. Take good care of it, little girl. It’s good for a house and lot—that ring.”
“Of course, goosie; you didn’t suppose I’d buy an imitation, did you? I guess not. It’s yours to do what you like with. But——”
He stared dubiously into her pretty, flushed face. “Keep it to yourself that I gave it to you, will you?”
“I—won’t tell,” she faltered. “I’ll do jus’ as you say, Mr. Whitcomb.”
“All right. Now you sit down here, and I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’ve got to look around a bit, and put some money on my horse. I’ll buy some candy, too, while I’m gone.”